Thursday, October 21, 2010

Not as many festival choices this weekend!

Much of the country is beginning to move out of the outdoor festival mode as we reach mid-October but there are still a few great events happening out there in the fresh brisk air. Won't be long till I'll be directing you into armories and church halls and such for food events. That is, if we can make our way around the snow and slush!!! (It's not far off, you know.)

There are, as usual, numerous wine events in just about every state and much of the Northern half of the country is celebrating the apple harvest with various apple festivals. There's a new orb in town, though, and it's taking over the spotlight. Yes, folks, I'm talking about the Great Pumpkin!!

Yesterday marked the opening of the Circleville Pumpkin Show in Circleville, Ohio, the oldest and largest festival in Ohio. This little town of 12,000 residents is invaded by over 400,000 visitors over the duration of this 4 day festival (10/20-10/23). That crowd is hungry, too, eating over 100,000 pumpkin donuts and buying 23,000 pumpkin pies among all the other festival eats!! They come to watch the parades - 7 different parades, each with a different theme. They come to compete in contests like the Prettiest Pumpkin, Pumpkin Pie Eating, Hog Calling and Egg Tossing. There's lots of stage entertainment, live music, the usual festival booths and rides and Gus, "The Squash Carver," will demonstrate at the Great Pumpkin Carving!

This year's biggest pumpkin weighs in at 1,622 lbs !!!!I wonder how many pies that'll make?

An added bonus: The festival's website has pumpkin recipes, too!

October 23 marks National Bulk Foods Day throughout the country. Now, I admit, when I first saw this on the calendar I thought it was a brilliant marketing ploy by those big warehouse stores like Sam's and Costco. My mind immediately went to defining "bulk" as meaning huge packages. I was wrong. They're not involved in this one at all. In this instance, we're talking about foods purchased unpackaged from bulk containers like barrels and such. Promoted by the Bulk Is Green Council, an organization dedicated to helping consumers, food makers and grocers learn about the many environmental and economic benefits of bulk foods, people around the country are encouraged to celebrate by buying everything from spices to almonds to rice in bulk at their nearest grocery store or co-op. Bulk foods provide the 30% to 60% savings to the consumer by eliminating the added costs of packaging and promotion. Packaged goods require signigicantly more transportation to make their way to the shelves of our local stores. The manufacturing of packaging kills trees, dumps contaminated water into our streams, uses tremendous amounts of energy and shoots tons of CO2 into our air. Packaging is a burden to our landfills.

While I can't claim I buy a lot of my foods this way (It's simply not easily available to us in our community.), we do buy some things like powdered milk, nuts and such from barrels at an Amish market we frequent. We also buy and use mostly fresh veggies and fruit over prepackaged ones. I tend to freeze my own veggies in season for later use.

So, even if it's just for that one day, why not try to buy some "un"packaged foods. After all, who really needs more plastic wrappers for the trash man?

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FOODIES, UNITE!!!

Yes. I am a "FOOD-IE". I admit it.

Sounds like the beginning steps to a 12-step program, doesn't it? It's not. That would be a cry for help - a plea for a cure or a resolution. No. I don't want a recovery. (Although I could stand to diet.) I want to find fellow Foodies.

I have a huge interest in FOOD. I love it, desire it, literally, crave it. I want to read about it, watch it on TV, create with it, and, most of all, consume it. I want to hang out with others who are really into food and discuss it in detail with them. I want to see it, feel it, touch it ...and EAT it.

I'm married to a foodie. We socialize with foodies. We search them out in a crowd. Heck, I'm even attempting to find foodies out here in the cyber-world to hang out with. Hopefully, you too, are a foodie and you'll sign on to this wild, wonderful and tasty adventure.

About Me

What can I say about myself? I'm at mid-life these days and I think I've found a comfort level. I'm married to a great laid back guy who I refer to as The Big Guy in my posts. We live in Central Maryland near the Chesapeake Bay with our only pets, a tank full of tropical fish. After working full time in the legal field for many years, I gave up the pressures of a busy office to stay at home and try being a housewife. I paint children's clothing (among many other crafts) and have turned it into a business.